https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fires-california-palisades-fire-homeowners-insurance-state-farm-fair-losses/
About 1,600 policies in Pacific Palisades were dropped by State Farm in July, California Department of Insurance spokesman Michael Soller said in an Thursday email to CBS MoneyWatch. An analysis of insurance data by CBS San Francisco last year found that State Farm also dropped more than 2,000 policies in two other Los Angeles ZIP codes, which include the Brentwood, Calabasas, Hidden Hills and Monte Nido neighborhoods.
In an email to CBS MoneyWatch, State Farm said, "Our No. 1 priority right now is the safety of our customers, agents and employees impacted by the fires and assisting our customers in the midst of this tragedy."
State Farm's decision reflects a trend of private insurers, including Allstate and Farmers Insurance, of dropping California policies or halting underwriting, leaving homeowners with the choice of getting coverage through the insurer of last resort, the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, or FAIR Plan, or forgo insurance altogether. The FAIR Plan provides basic fire insurance coverage for properties in high-risk areas when traditional insurance companies will not.
As a result, homeowners in Pacific Palisades had increasingly shifted to the FAIR Plan, with roughly 1,400 of the town's 9,000 homes covered by the plan in 2024, more than quadruple the number in 2020, according to data from the insurer. In other words, prior to the disaster, about 1 in 7 homeowners were reliant on the FAIR Plan.
The Palisades Fire could become the costliest wildfire in history because of the number of buildings that have been destroyed and as the structures rank among the nation's most expensive homes, said Daniel Swain, a University of California Los Angeles climatologist, on a Wednesday webcast about the disaster. The neighborhood's 9,000 residential units have a median home value of $3.1 million, according to real estate data firm ATTOM Data.
While personally and financially devastating to homeowners, the Los Angeles fires — which include the Eaton Fire and several other wildfires — are likely to place added stress on the state's already fragile insurance market, experts and lawmakers say. It's an issue that extends beyond California, with similar issues facing homeowners in Florida, Louisiana and other states.
"We will be watching to see whether the collapse of a trembling home insurance market accelerates after this added shock," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, wrote on X Thursday. Whitehouse serves on the Senate Budget Committee, which last month issued a report about climate change's impact on the insurance market.
In California, State Farm last year said it was discontinuing coverage for 72,000 houses and apartments in the state. Since 2019, more than 100,000 Californians have lost their insurance, according to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis of insurance data.